


what does it mean to be "in love," anyways?

by ghostscantdie



Series: aro snufkin [2]
Category: Moominvalley (Cartoon 2019), Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson, 楽しいムーミン一家 | Moomin (Anime)
Genre: Aromantic Character, Aromantic Snufkin, Lesbian Snorkmaiden, Neither are explicitly stated but it's implied, Neither of them are in love with Moomin but they both care about him very much, Snufkin and Snorkmaiden have a chat about feelings, Sorry Moomin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 21:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18677440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostscantdie/pseuds/ghostscantdie
Summary: “Have you ever been in love, Snufkin?” Snorkmaiden asked.Snufkin tensed. He wasn’t quite sure if he would like where this line of questioning was going. “If I have been, I didn’t know it,” he replied carefully.Snorkmaiden gave him a look like she didn’t quite believe him."I just meant I'm not sure I know what it feels like," Snufkin said.





	what does it mean to be "in love," anyways?

**Author's Note:**

> this is sort of a continuation of my last fic, "empty." i know not a lot of people probably agree with or like it, but i see snufkin as aromantic, and this fic explores that a bit without really ever explicitly saying it. i'll probably write more where it's said in the actual fic, but i think it will take time for snufkin to get to that point. heaven knows it took me a while to come to terms with it.
> 
> anyways, comments are always appreciated. and hey. thanks for reading. :-)

Snufkin was sitting quietly on the bank of the river by Moomin House, as he often did with Moomin, fishing. Only this time, it wasn’t with Moomin he was sitting, but Snorkmaiden. They didn’t speak often, especially without Moomin around (as he was really the only thing they had in common), and so while the silence was peaceful, it was a bit awkward. Snorkmaiden was idly plucking flowers from the riverbank when she spoke, breaking the silence.

“Have you ever been in love, Snufkin?” Snorkmaiden asked.

Snufkin tensed. He wasn’t quite sure if he would like where this line of questioning was going. “If I have been, I didn’t know it,” he replied carefully, tugging nervously at the grass by his sides and keeping his eyes trained on the flowing water at their feet.

Snorkmaiden gave him a look like she didn’t quite believe him.

“I just mean that I don’t know what it feels like to be ‘in love,’” Snufkin rushed out, as if keeping the words inside stung him. “How can I know, if I don’t know what it feels like?”

“I’m sure you’d know it when you felt it,” Snorkmaiden said with a bit of a huff. “I was only curious, but if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.” It was clearly not fine.

“Well, I don’t know if I’ve felt it, so I suppose I’ve never been in love. Why do you care so much, anyways?” Snufkin huffed in turn, adjusting his fishing line with far more aggression than was strictly necessary.

Snorkmaiden grew quiet. She fiddled with a flower, pulling off the petals one by one. It wasn’t until she had pulled off the last one that she spoke. “I’m in love with Moomin, but I don’t think he’s in love with me.”

“Oh,” Snufkin said, because that was really all one could say in that situation. “What does that have to do with me?”

Snorkmaiden sighed. “I thought maybe, if you were ever in love with someone, and maybe they weren’t in love with you back, you could tell me what I should do. Or tell me what you did. And, I think, I think he...” She trailed off with a sigh. “...never mind.”

Snufkin didn’t understand why Snorkmaiden thought he would be a good person to go to for romantic advice. He never really “got” romance, and her and Moomin’s relationship had always seemed bizarre to him. Why sit around and cuddle and hold hands when there were far more interesting things to do? Or, at the very least, far more productive things. Snufkin didn’t say any of this out loud, of course. Instead, he said, “I don’t think I can help you much. I don’t know what it feels like to be in love. Why don’t you just ask him? Perhaps you’re mistaken.”

And perhaps she was. Moomin and her always seemed to enjoy doing couple things together. If that wasn’t indicative of them being “in love,” Snufkin didn’t know what was. But perhaps in this realm he was simply oblivious.

“It’s not really that simple, Snufkin…” Snorkmaiden said with another sigh.

“Apparently not. I don’t understand why you insist on being in love when it’s so much easier not to be.”

Snorkmaiden laid down in the grass and stared up at the cloudless sky. “You really are clueless, aren’t you..?”

She said it with so little anger and so much forlornness that Snufkin wasn’t quite sure how to respond. It clearly hadn’t been intended as an insult.

“Apparently being in love has all sorts of rules I don’t know about,” Snufkin finally said, somewhat ruefully. “I just don’t understand… what is the point of being in love when being friends is so much more fun, and you don’t have to obey all these silly rules?”

Snorkmaiden suddenly shot up straight. “It’s nothing like friendship at all!” she cried.

“Clearly,” Snufkin said with obvious distaste, “You have all these extra rules you have to follow, and you have to do couple things like kiss.”

“Oh, you don’t understand, Snufkin,” Snorkmaiden moaned. “Being in love is one of the greatest feelings in the world! Your heart races and your stomach flutters and your face warms and when the one you’re in love with looks your way you feel so full of love you could die!” She looked positively a-glow at the mere thought of it.

Snufkin was less enamored. “That sounds positively awful!” Snufkin cried. “And you feel this way whenever you’re around Moomin! How can you stand it!?”

“Well,” Snorkmaiden said, a bit sheepish, “I haven’t exactly felt all of it yet with Moomin! But that’s how the stories I’ve read talk about it!”

“I thought you said you were in love with Moomin?” Snufkin asked, confused.

“I am!” Snorkmaiden insisted. “Perhaps it’s simply because he is not in love with me.”

“I suppose,” Snufkin hummed, doubtful, but not experienced enough in matters of the heart to argue.

They sat in silence for a bit. Snufkin felt a tug on his line and pulled up a lovely looking trout before putting his line back out, intending to catch another for Snorkmaiden if she wanted one (if not, more for him). Snorkmaiden wove herself a flower crown and began working on a second. For Moomin, Snufkin assumed.

“What does it feel like to not be in love, then, Snufkin?” Snorkmaiden asked, suddenly. Snufkin supposed she had been pondering this in the silence.

“It’s not really a feeling you can describe, you know,” he said, amused. “I don’t think you can really describe the absence of something you’ve never felt.”

“Humor me, and try,” Snorkmaiden pushed.

“Alright, I can try,” Snufkin agreed hesitantly.

He cleared his throat. “Not being in love--and never being in love--feels like… a headache. It feels like the people around you are speaking in another language, a language so intimate and familiar to them and to everyone… except you. No matter how hard you try you cannot learn this language, and soon you give up trying to understand it. They tell you you’ll learn it one day, when the right teacher comes along, but what if they never do? It’s a language spoken with the body, and touching other people in that way makes you uncomfortable, so you don’t know if you ever want to be taught it, anyways.” Snufkin paused. “It’s very lonely, never being in love, but I don’t mind much,” he said, well aware that it was very obvious that he did mind quite a lot.

Snorkmaiden didn’t say anything after that. At first, Snufkin panicked a bit after baring so much of himself to someone he knew so little about, making himself so vulnerable to someone he didn’t know he could trust, but Snorkmaiden caught his eye and he knew she understood.

Snorkmaiden finished weaving her second flower crown and placed it on Snufkin’s hat (he was grateful she hadn’t asked him to remove it), and Snufkin caught another couple fish. They cooked them over a fire in the pit outside Snufkin’s tent, and spoke of less heavy things. But mostly, they sat in silence and mutual understanding, and that was enough, for now.


End file.
